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In nonclinical safety studies for new drug development, healthy animals have been commonly used. However, in some cases, the use of animal models of human disease is considered to be more favorable in evaluating risks in patients. To elucidate the current status of the use of animal models for nonclinical safety assessment, an internal questionnaire from the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and surveys (questionnaire period: August 27 to September 30, 2015) of both common technical documents and review reports of approved drugs (approval period: May 1999 to May 2017) disclosed by the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency were conducted. Although there were some concerns and limitations raised, the survey results revealed that animal models have been used in nonclinical safety assessment on a case-by-case basis and that nonclinical safety studies using animal models were included in the data packages of several approved drugs in Japan. The survey results also revealed that nonclinical safety studies using animal models have become more frequent in the past few years. In almost all cases, useful information, such as signs of toxicity under disease conditions and mechanisms of toxic change, was obtained from the results of nonclinical studies using animal models. Note: This is an opinion article submitted to the Toxicologic Pathology Forum. It represents the views of the author(s). It does not constitute an official position of the Society of Toxicologic Pathology, British Society of Toxicological Pathology, or European Society of Toxicologic Pathology, and the views expressed might not reflect the best practices recommended by these Societies. This article should not be construed to represent the policies, positions, or opinions of their respective organizations, employers, or regulatory agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports mega-events, like the Rugby World Cup, are often considered as a major platform for the celebration and reinforcement of nationalism. However, there is an emerging strand of research which contends that the host nations are increasingly presenting themselves with diverse, inclusive and cosmopolitan characteristics and, in turn, forms of nationalism have undergone some noticeable changes in more recent times. In this paper, we pursue an argument that Japan as the host of the 2019 Rugby World Cup projected the nation with a cosmopolitan outlook ultimately to sustain or even strengthen national interest and identity through the process of 'cosmopolitan nationalism'. Methodologically, the research deployed critical discourse analysis to examine media representations of Japan as the host nation in general, and its national team in particular, within one of the leading Japanese newspapers as well as a range of other publicly available resources and materials in relation to the Rugby World Cup. In result, the study reveals the ways in which the discourse of 'One Team', embracement of foreignness and incidents of international exchanges during the event were mobilised to generate 'thin' cosmopolitan moments and, at the same time, were incorporated into the narratives of Japan's success on the world stage through conditional acceptance of foreignness and diversity. Consequently, this paper offers both a theoretical underpinning for and empirical evidence of the emerging linkage between sports mega-events and cosmopolitan nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the COVID-19, it is very significant to explore the dynamic fluctuation of China's export growth to the international market and examine the causes of this fluctuation in a multi-dimensional way. The dynamic fluctuation level is measured in the short and medium-long cycle respectively based on monthly data. Factor decomposition of the dynamic fluctuation is made from the growth effect, the structure effect and the competitiveness effect by the improved CMS model, which results show that the growth effect has decreased first and then increased; The structure effects include market structure effects and commodity structure effects, and the former effect basically fluctuates around the X-axis while there is a negative commodity structure effect; There are different specific competitiveness effects on 21 categories of goods. China should rely on the RCEP agreement to strengthen and stabilize trade cooperation other countries, and strengthen its core position in the industry chain and value chain in the Asia Pacific region. The current paper creatively introduce the trade expansion margin including the ternary margin and product structure into the CMS model, explaining the internal relationship between the trade expansion margin analysis at the product- market level and the CMS analysis at the overall level; meanwhile, this paper analyses the dynamic fluctuation structure of China's export growth to Japan and South Korea through a CMS factor decomposition from the perspective of technological structure and factor ladder, and studies the source and dynamic distribution evolution of this growth pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the impact of varying the input seismic excitation directions on the system fragility of a geometrically complex highway bridge structure. The traditional approach of fragility derivation in the principal loading directions (longitudinal and transverse) results in an under/overestimation of the system fragility. To reduce such errors, the contribution of all major vulnerable components to the system fragility in the critical loading direction must be considered. For this purpose, a series of nonlinear time-history analyses were conducted for a testbed configured geometrically curved highway bridge structure in Japan. Shear strain, ductility, and distortion strain were considered as engineering demand parameters for bearings, concrete pier, and steel piers, respectively. The demand dependency among the components was considered using the correlation coefficient matrix for fragility estimation. Subsequently, fragility functions with respect to the input loading directions were generated for the bridge components and system to quantify their sensitivity to seismic input excitation directions. The results show that the component fragility is significantly influenced by the input excitation direction. A relative comparison of the system fragility for different loading directions indicated that a 150° loading direction yielded a higher fragility demand. The findings suggest that the critical fragility assessment should not always be decided only along the principal loading directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population aging has led to the establishment of Healthcare Real Estate Investment Trusts (HC-REITs) to boost the supply of nursing homes, but these initiatives have met with contrasting success in different countries. This paper bridges two strands of research on financialization, social welfare and the built environment, to explain the uneven geography of HC-REIT development in France, the UK and Japan. It argues that nation-specific processes of nursing home securitization are shaped by the interrelationships between three crucial factors: (i) the regime of retirement income, (ii) public policies dedicated to long-term institutional care and (iii) the power relations between the REITs and care providers themselves. Drawing on discussions with experts in these sectors, the paper demonstrates that liberal welfare states such as the UK have an especially attractive profile for Healthcare REIT investors due to the advanced state of financialized pension reforms, significant state disengagement in the provision of long-term care and REIT-friendly regulations that facilitate investment operations and leases. On the one hand, these tendencies are driving financial investors to satisfy a growing demand for retirement savings in niche markets such as Healthcare REITs. On the other hand, value extraction is being increasingly sought through the capture of care-dependent residents' home equity. By linking social benefit provisioning to later life housing accommodation, this article casts important light on current debates on the political economy of real estate financialization, while also emphasizing the need for continued state support for long-term institutional care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies found that origami, when used for cognitive training and education, can improve spatial ability, the underlying mechanisms of this change, presumably associated with the origami folding process, remain unclear. In the present study, we focused on origami imagery in which participants imagined the process of folding paper to create a work of art; and we examined the cognitive factors involved in the imagery process and their association with mental transformations and the extent to which visual imagery was vivid. We identified four specific relevant cognitive factors in origami imagery: (a) controllability of origami transformations, (b) visual imagery of shapes, (c) hand sensations, and (d) visual imagery of colors. We associated the first two of these with non-rigid transformations: the controllability of origami transformations and the visual imagery of shapes. Moreover, vividness of visual imagery was related to all four cognitive factors. We propose this cognitive model of origami as one that considers the key relationships between origami imagery, mental transformations, and vividness of visual imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has indicated how diverse books contribute to a more culturally responsive pedagogy, allowing children to identify themselves in the stories they read and gain an appreciation for others whose lives are different from theirs. Moreover, a sensitive discussion of and critical responses to diverse picturebooks is found to positively influence a child's social and emotional learning competecies, apart from increasing a child's cultural knowledge and serving as a catalyst for social justice. This paper is meant to broaden early childhood educators' repertoire of picturebooks that can be used in the classroom to also include international titles (translated into English from their original languages) and multicultural titles to facilitate affective engagement with these narratives and introduce social and emotional learning skills (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management and responsible decision-making). This paper provides a list of diverse books (from the Netherlands, Japan, Lithuania, Spain, Germany, France, Argentina – among others) for students in early childhood (from preschool to third grade) thematically organized across the five social and emotional learning competencies. Strategies such as book-bonding and literacy bags for family engagement will be shared while using the framework of culturally responsive teaching in an early childhood setting. Recommendations for how family members can be more involved are included, along with critical literacy strategies that include conversations, multiple perspectives and the sharing of authentic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study on the responses analyses of a seismically isolated multi-span highway bridge recorded during the 2011 Great East Japan (Tohoku) earthquake and assessment of isolation bearing condition based on the responses. During the earthquake, lateral pounding and locking between the side-stoppers and the upper steel plate of the isolation bearings were observed of several piers. Finite element model was employed to analyze the problem and scenarios of locked bearing on the piers were simulated. The study also presents a wavelet-based technique to detect the presence and location of locked bearing. Instantaneous frequency of continuous wavelet transform of girder and piers accelerations were employed to evaluate isolation bearing condition by identifying the occurrence of high-frequency filtering effect. Afterwards, bearing condition was characterized via statistical clustering technique. Accuracy and efficacy of the technique were verified in simulations using three-dimensional finite element model of the bridge. Results of simulations demonstrate that wavelet-based features can effectively characterize isolation bearings condition directly from seismic responses of girder and piers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the view that Lesson Study has the potential to make a significant contribution to future developments in primary physical education. To set the paper in context, we explore the concerns that have long been voiced about primary physical education, particularly the nature of the professional development experiences of generalist primary class teachers. Contemporary approaches to teachers' professional development, one of which is Lesson Study, are presented as having some potential in addressing these concerns as they are focused on teacher collaboration, autonomy and agency. Building on this background, the paper reports on a longitudinal physical education Lesson Study investigation that took place in one primary school in Japan: a country where Lesson Study has been a key feature of teachers' professional development for more than a century. Working with 30 teachers over a three-year period, the findings highlight how the long-term, collaborative and situated nature of the Lesson Study experience helped create a positive context for the teachers' professional development in physical education. Specifically, the findings reveal that the shared planning, observation and reflective experiences over time helped the teachers develop a more positive and detailed view of physical education. The paper concludes by proposing that Lesson Study, as a long-term, collaborative and situated endeavour, has the potential to foster productive developments in generalist teachers' enactment of the primary physical education curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychotherapy had developed into a dynamic and diverse field in pre-war Japan. Apart from thousands of spiritually oriented lay psychotherapists, there were a few quasi-professional practitioners who insisted on a rational approach and experimented with a variety of psychotherapeutic methods. Among them was Kokyō Nakamura, whose quest for a viable psychotherapeutic method is intriguing and illuminating. This paper examines the evolution of Nakamura's theories and practices by dividing it into three stages: hypnotic suggestion, psychoanalysis, and Morita therapy. His pragmatic and adaptive approach to psychotherapy provides not only an interesting example for studying the spread of psychotherapy across nations and cultures, but also valuable clues to understanding its nature as a body of knowledge and therapeutic method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores domestic dynamics in the complex making of institutional psychiatry in Japan in c. 1920–45. It mainly examines gender issues between the relatively long-lasting system of the family care of mentally ill members and the use of freshly introduced systems of psychiatric hospitals. I shall look at the record of Ohji Brain Hospital (1901–45) in Tokyo, which has several thousands of case histories mainly in Tokyo c. 1920–45. From the analysis of the cases of male and female patients, as well as the complex situations of their households and kin groups, I shall look at the gender issues in the making of the psychiatric hospital regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dealing with cultural diversity is one of the key challenges in contemporary societies, with Japan being no exception. However, relatively little is known about how minority group members are viewed by members of the dominant group. The current paper presents a study that evaluated three hypotheses that are related to these issues with a survey of 210 Japanese adult participants. The study also examines moderating roles of national identities in acculturation expectations and psychological functioning in the dominant group. Perceived security about the society in terms of national culture, and personal conditions in a multicultural society predict the most tolerant form of acculturation expectation. This association is mediated by one's multicultural ideology. Although acculturation expectations are not predictive of psychological functioning, particular national identity (i.e., internationalism) alleviates the negative effect of the closest form of expectation (exclusion) on psychological problems. The study implies the need for analysis on culture-specific constructs of multicultural society in perceptions and attitudes in the dominant group in Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The significance of mutual-help in communities for disaster management is a fundamental important concept. However, the current societal state does not reflect this lesson. S&G (Simulation and Gaming) has the potential to overcome the challenges faced in promoting community-based disaster management. No scientific research is currently present that reviews their achievements in Japan. Aim. This paper analyzes the current achievements of S&G in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan. Method. The paper clarifies the theoretical advantages of S&G in enhancing community resilience in coping and adaptive capacity plus proposes a conceptual contribution framework of S&G in improving community resilience. Based on this framework, the paper analyzes some major games that tackle community resilience against earthquakes in Japan. Results. The paper demonstrates the achievements through the S&G spectrum that stresses the disastrous experience with specific resilience views on one side, while decision making for critical reflection from other players with more comprehensive resilience views on the other side. Conclusion. The paper showcases the current S&G achievements in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan using the proposed framework, which can be utilized by other disaster-prone countries to develop and evaluate applications of S&G for increasing community resilience against earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although measuring the ideal points of news media is essential for testing political communication theories based on spatial theory, prior methods of estimating ideal points of media outlets have various shortcomings, including high cost in terms of time and human resources and low applicability to different countries. We propose that unsupervised machine learning techniques for text data, specifically the combination of a text scaling method and latent topic modeling, can be applied to estimate ideal points of media outlets. We applied our proposed methods to editorial texts of ten national and regional newspapers in Japan, where prior approaches are not applicable because newspapers have never officially endorsed particular parties or candidates, and because high-quality training data for supervised learning are not available. Our two studies, one of which analyzed editorials on a single typically ideological topic while the other investigated all editorials published by the target papers in one year, confirmed the popular view of Japanese newspapers' ideological slant, which validates the effectiveness of our proposed approach. We also illustrate that our methods allow scholars to investigate which issues are closely related to the respective ideological positions of media outlets. Furthermore, we use the estimated ideal points of newspapers to show that Japanese people partially tend to read ideologically like-minded newspapers and follow such newspapers' Twitter accounts even though their slant is not explicit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. Ten years have passed since the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and radioactive substances contained in agricultural products and marine products are now below detectable levels. Amidst this, the testing stance is changing from one that guarantees safety to one that guarantees relief, and testing is being reduced for financial reasons. Moreover, the sense of resistance and concern towards food products produced in Fukushima Prefecture is reducing. Anxiety has been reducing along with the development of the inspection system, the inspection results, and the passage of time. However, although there have been fewer requests, demands, and claims to avoid products from Fukushima Prefecture since immediately after the accident, there is a tendency for consumer trends to be forcefully 'surmised'. As a result, the problem of reputational damage, such as the fact that the market ranking of rice and beef has not recovered, remains an issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. This article describes the institutional structure established for decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. To deal with the aftermath of the unprecedented nuclear accident in Fukushima, several responsible institutions such as Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) have worked together at the initiative of the Government of Japan. In this structure, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) implements the decommissioning due to its legal responsibility, while the essential direction and milestones are set by the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters of the Government of Japan. Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corporation, a government-affiliated organisation, oversees and facilitates the decommissioning by TEPCO, and the Nuclear Regulatory Authority regulates safety from an independent standpoint. The main basic elements essential for the success of this long-term project have been developed, such as the technical strategy, financial system, and organisational capability. Decommissioning is making progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes research and development of an ice shell construction carried out in inland Hokkaido of Japan from 1980 to 2012.The ice shell is made of thin-walled curved ice plate and constructed according to the following method. (1) Building up a three-dimensional formwork by inflating a two-dimensional membrane bag covered with ropes anchored to the snow-ice foundation ring. (2) Covering the formwork with a thin saturated snow layer of less than 1 cm thickness by blowing milled snow with a rotary snow blower and spraying water with an adjustable nozzle, and letting it freeze naturally at temperatures below −10°C. (3) Repeating (2) until shell thickness reaches to the design thickness, then removing the bag and ropes for reuse. A number of ice shells were constructed as temporary winter structures while improving the construction technique through the repeated construction experiences. Based on the field experiments of 10–30 m ice domes (" X m ice dome" means the ice dome constructed by using X m diameter of circular membrane bag in the formwork before inflation) which measured the deflection and temperature under long term period after the completion and further observed the behavior of the collapse, it was recognized that understanding the creep behavior is extremely important for evaluating the structural safety of the ice shell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Palliative care is insufficiently integrated in the continuum of care for older people. It is unclear to what extent healthcare policy for older people includes elements of palliative care and thus supports its integration. Aim: (1) To develop a reference framework for identifying palliative care contents in policy documents; (2) to determine inclusion of palliative care in public policy documents on healthcare for older people in 13 rapidly ageing countries. Design: Directed documentary analysis of public policy documents (legislation, policies/strategies, guidelines, white papers) on healthcare for older people. Using existing literature, we developed a reference framework and data extraction form assessing 10 criteria of palliative care inclusion. Country experts identified documents and extracted data. Setting: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain. Results: Of 139 identified documents, 50 met inclusion criteria. The most frequently addressed palliative care elements were coordination and continuity of care (12 countries), communication and care planning, care for family, and ethical and legal aspects (11 countries). Documents in 10 countries explicitly mentioned palliative care, nine addressed symptom management, eight mentioned end-of-life care, and five referred to existing palliative care strategies (out of nine that had them). Conclusions: Health care policies for older people need revising to include reference to end-of-life care and dying and ensure linkage to existing national or regional palliative care strategies. The strong policy focus on care coordination and continuity in policies for older people is an opportunity window for palliative care advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine how parental caregiving affects women's employment in Japan. Drawing on the 2005–2014 Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons, we estimate logistic regression models for the employment status of middle-aged women in various types of employment as a function of caregiving intensity to examine when and in what context caregivers' employment may be at risk for Japanese women. The results showed that working women who began providing 5 or more hours of care per week were significantly more likely to leave their jobs than non-caregiving women; those who began providing fewer than 5 hours of care per week did not show this likelihood. Among women in regular employment, those who began to provide 5 or more hours of care per week and those who provided care in the previous year were more likely to stop working or change jobs than their non-caregiving counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial scan statistics are widely used tools for the detection of disease clusters. Especially, the circular spatial scan statistic proposed by Kulldorff along with SaTScan software has been used in a wide variety of epidemiological studies and disease surveillance. However, as it cannot detect non-circular, irregularly shaped clusters, many authors have proposed non-circular spatial scan statistics. Above all, the flexible spatial scan statistic proposed by Tango and Takahashi along with FleXScan software has also been used. However, it does not seem to be well recognized that these spatial scan statistics, especially SaTScan, tend to detect the most likely cluster, much larger than the true cluster by absorbing neighboring regions with nonelevated risk of disease occurrence. Therefore, if researchers reported the detected most likely cluster as they are, it might lead to a criticism to them due to the fact that some regions with nonelevated risk are included in the detected most likely cluster. In this paper, to avoid detecting such undesirable and misleading clusters which might cause a social concern, we shall propose the use of the restricted likelihood ratio proposed by Tango and illustrate the procedure with two kinds of mortality data in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses findings from online surveys completed by parents of 0–3-year-old children in Norway, Portugal and Japan concerning their young children's use of touchscreen technology. The study investigated parental practices, views and perspectives related to children's digital practices and explored these in relation to wider cultural discourses around early childhood in the participant countries. The study adopted Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory to inform the questionnaire and interpretative data analysis of how parents' views and experiences are influenced by a wide range of social, cultural and personal factors. The findings demonstrate some coherence between beliefs among parents regarding very young children's use of touchscreen technologies and their place in the children's home lives. Quantitative and qualitative results highlight that the respondents from all countries expressed the need for further guidance regarding technology use, and better communication with early education and care centres. The study findings are discussed in relation to the reported uses of touchscreen technologies in the three different cultural contexts, parents' views on the benefits and/or disadvantages of children's touchscreen technology use, and the potential influences of dominant cultural discourses on parents' perceptions, views and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nurses experience moral distress when they cannot do what they believe is right or when they must do what they believe is wrong. Given the limited mechanisms for managing ethical issues for nurses in Japan, an Online Ethics Consultation on mental health (OEC) was established open to anyone seeking anonymous consultation on mental health practice. Research objective: To report the establishment of the Online Ethics Consultation and describe and evaluate its effectiveness. Ethical considerations: The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Research design: This evaluation describes the outcomes of 5 years of operation of the Online Ethics Consultation on mental health in Japan Participants: The Online Ethics Consultation received 12 emails requesting consultation. Consultees included mental health nurses, psychiatrists, and service users. Findings: The most common questions directed to the service were about seclusion and physical restraint. Response time from receipt of email to sending a reply was between 1 and 14 days. Despite the disappointing number of consultations, feedback has been positive. Discussion: The Online Ethics Consultation was established to assist morally sensitive nurses in resolving their ethical problems through provision of unbiased and encouraging advice. Mental health care in Japan has been less than ideal: long-term social hospitalization, seclusion, and restraint are common practices that often lead to moral distress in nurses and the questions received reflected this. The head of the Online Ethics Consultation sent a supportive, facilitative response summarizing the opinions of several consultants. Conclusion: This study provides key information for the establishment of an online ethics resource the adoption of which has the potential to improve the experience of nurses, allied health and clients of mental health services. This paper has implications for services concerned with improving patient care, managing nurses' moral distress, building ethics into decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stepfamilies, an emerging family form in Asia, are gaining growing academic and social attention in Asia. This paper presents an overview of stepfamilies in Asia, based primarily on research findings in Japan, which suggest underlying two competing stepfamily models as key factors in understanding stepfamily dynamics: the "scrap and build" household model versus the expanded and interconnected network model. The findings in Japan are, then, juxtaposed with existing research findings on stepfamilies in East Asia and Singapore in terms of (a) cultural views on stepfamilies; (b) values of grandparenting, mothering, and fathering; and (c) family law and policies. Some commonalities are found in remaining influence of the "scrap and build" household model and in recent policy changes toward the expanded and interconnected network model, along with some variations, across these societies. Evidently, more studies across Asian societies are needed to obtain a clearer picture of stepfamilies in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a debate that took place in Japan in the early twentieth century over the comparability of hypnosis and Zen. The debate was among the first exchanges between psychology and Buddhism in Japan, and it cast doubt on previous assumptions that a clear boundary existed between the two fields. In the debate, we find that contemporaries readily incorporated ideas from psychology and Buddhism to reconstruct the experiences and concepts of hypnosis and Buddhist nothingness. The resulting new theories and techniques of nothingness were fruits of a fairly fluid boundary between the two fields. The debate, moreover, reveals that psychology tried to address the challenges and possibilities posed by religious introspective meditation and intuitive experiences in a positive way. In the end, however, psychology no longer regarded them as viable experimental or psychotherapeutic tools but merely as particular subjective experiences to be investigated and explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant occurred following the huge tsunami and earthquake of 11 March 2011. After the accident, there was considerable uncertainty and concern about the health effects of radiation. In this difficult situation, emergency responses, including large-scale evacuation, were implemented. The Fukushima Health Management Survey (FHMS) was initiated 3 months after the accident. The primary purposes of FHMS were to monitor the long-term health of residents, promote their well-being, and monitor any health effects related to long-term, low-dose radiation exposure. Despite the severity of the Fukushima accident and the huge impact of the natural disaster, radiation exposure of the public was very low. However, there were other serious health problems, including deaths during evacuation, increased mortality among displaced elderly people, mental health and lifestyle-related health problems, and social issues after the accident. The Nuclear Emergency Situations - Improvement of Medical and Health Surveillance (SHAMISEN) project, funded by the Open Project For European Radiation Research Area, aimed to develop recommendations for medical and health surveillance of populations affected by previous and future radiation accidents. This paper briefly introduces the points that have been learned from the Fukushima accident from the perspective of SHAMISEN recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background In common with other countries, Japan has an ageing population and geographical impediments to healthcare access. The role of telemedicine within the Japanese health system may be of wide interest, yet it has not been comprehensively explored and documented. Thus, the aim of this study was to systematically review the Japanese and English language literature relating to the clinical use of telemedicine in Japan. Methods For studies published in Japanese, we searched Ichushi and CiNii. For English language publications, we searched Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science. All peer-reviewed articles describing the clinical use of telemedicine and published between 2007 and 2016 were included. Data on clinical area, study type, technology used, and type of communication were extracted. Studies were categorised by prevention, screening, diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment. Results The search yielded 1476 records; 26 Japanese language and 15 English language articles were selected for review. A wide range of clinical areas were represented; however, home care and life-style related studies were dominant. More than 50% of studies were related to prevention and early diagnosis. The majority of Japanese studies involved doctor-to-doctor consultation. Smartphones and remote monitoring systems were the main types of technology used. Conclusions Most studies of telemedicine in Japan are published in the Japanese language and are thus relatively inaccessible to the rest of the world; for the first time, this study has provided an overview of the clinical use of telemedicine in Japan. The clinically related papers reflect the Japanese cultural focus on disease prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the 1970s the new urban poverty (NUP) ballooned in Japan and the US, and it evoked policy responses that produced new, rescaled regulatory spaces to contain the poor on the fringe of social rights and the capital circuit. The paper illuminates this process through the comparison of Japanese and US trajectories, both of which, evolving through economic crises, have established unique pathways. The author first constructs a theoretical framework based on Marxian, Polanyian, and Lefebvrean traditions. Then, he compares national-scale poverty regulation in Japan and the US from the 1950s through the 2000s. Lastly, the author examines how the countries' regulation of a major aspect of the NUP--homelessness--intensified multiscalar reseating processes. The paper concludes that regulation of the NUP represents a significant instance of uneven spatial development of capitalism mediated by the state that requires synthetic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces some regression models for a categorical dependent variable with data from egocentric social networks as covariates to analyze the determinants of the outcome for the subject and the determinants of the extent of agreement in the outcome between the subject and the people socially connected to the subject. The merits of the models introduced in this paper are their wide applicability to surveys that collect data on egocentric social networks and their ability to identify the determinants of agreement between subjects’ and their friends’ attitudinal or behavioral outcomes, controlling for the tendency to agree because of homophily in the choice of friends. An illustrative application from the Japanese General Social Survey data shows that several substantively distinct characteristics of egocentric networks affect subjects’ political party preferences and the extent of agreement between the political party preferences of subjects and their significant others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The smell of real leather: as you slide on new shoes, or slip into a new car. Luxury. Refinement. Juxtapose this with the person who inappropriately smells of leather, of animal flesh. The nose curls with even the thought: contagion and filth, a different kind of person. These divergent sensibilities of the smell of leather exist alongside each other in contemporary Japan, each requiring a discriminating nose to demarcate sets of smell and sets of people. Set against this backdrop of aromatic bivalency, this paper examines how smell and the capacity for olfaction become key elements in the identification of stigma in Japan. I explore the ecology of interrelating sensibilities that compose the politics of stigma. The Buraku people have historically been marginalized in Japan because of associations with stigmatized industries such as leather and meat production. Since the 1970s, the groundwork for asserting such associations has been dramatically reconfigured. This paper focuses on the changing practices by which such attribution occurs, the demands these practices make on capacities for olfaction and the qualities of scent, and the role ceded to private detectives as purveyors of evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background Computerized provider order entry (CPOE) has been developed and implemented within cancer center hospitals nationwide in Japan. To ensure that high-quality services are routinely provided by oncology pharmacists, this study was designed to evaluate the interventions through reviewing the orders that are generated by CPOE. Methods The objective of this retrospective chart review was to evaluate how pharmacists contributed to safe cancer treatment using paper-based pharmacy records. Data were collected from a total of 35,062 chemotherapy regimens for 18,515 outpatients between January and December 2013. Results Of these 35,062 chemotherapy regimens, the rate of pharmacists’ interventions was 1.1% (n = 408). Among them, 53.1% (217/408) of the chemotherapy prescriptions were modified due to pharmacist interventions. The reasons for interventions included “changes in the chemotherapy regimen were unclear” in 49.5%, “physicians’ prescription errors” (22.0%), “pharmacist suggestions to improve chemotherapy” (15.1%), and “finding differences between physicians’ chemotherapy records and their chemotherapy prescriptions” (13.2%). The top three reasons for the 217 prescription modifications due to pharmacist interventions were “finding prescription errors” (34.5%), “reasons for change in the chemotherapy regimen were unclear” (32.7%), and “finding differences between physicians’ chemotherapy records and their chemotherapy prescriptions” (28.5%). Conclusion The computer could not evaluate chemotherapy protocols or adjust doses of anticancer medicines according to patients’ conditions. Therefore, oncology pharmacists should continue to ensure safe and appropriate administration of cancer chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explored South Korean and Japanese newspaper reports on the "comfort women" who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s-1940s, to examine how print media have reproduced the reality of the issue. I conducted a quantitative frame analysis of the contents of news articles (N = 384) on the comfort women in four South Korean and Japanese newspapers. The frames of comfort women articles in all papers can be considered to be very stereotyped, because they have changed little according to the newspaper's political position (conservative/liberal), attitude (anti-Japan/anti-South Korea), and nationality (South Korean/Japanese). When the relationship of South Korea and Japan has been combative, conflict and morality frames have been abundant. In contrast, when the relationship has been favorable, human interest frames have been ample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between September 2011 and August 2015, the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) organised a series of 12 stakeholder dialogue workshops with residents of Fukushima Prefecture. Discussions focused on recovery, addressing topics such as protection of children, management of contaminated food, monitoring, and self-help measures. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) supported, and the Committee on Radiation Protection and Public Health (CRPPH) Secretariat attended, all 12 meetings to listen directly to the concerns of affected individuals and draw lessons for CRPPH. To summarise the dialogue results, ICRP organised a final meeting in Date, Japan with the support of NEA and other organisations. The lessons from and utility of the dialogue meetings were praised by dialogue participants and sponsors, and ICRP agreed that some form of dialogue would continue, although with ICRP participation and support rather than leadership. This paper summarises the internationally relevant lessons learned by CRPPH from this important process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its rapidly flowing rivers and plentiful summer rainfall, 20th-century Japan has a history of frequent flooding. The effects on its densely populated flood plains have often been devastating. Japan also has one of the world's landscapes most heavily covered in concrete. In recent decades, however, the Japanese state has turned hesitantly to new techniques of releasing of water into the sea buttressed by a concern for ecological well-being. Its 'nature-oriented' river landscaping programme is an attempt to find a more sustainable balance between flowing water and the built terrain, allowing water to make space for itself. Our paper sets this programme in its historical context, relating it back to the premodern period and juxtaposing it to prevalent modernist 20th-century practice. Throughout this paper, we focus on the interweaving of discourse and practice, drawing attention to the 'idiom' of river landscaping as well as to the role of the state in defining this idiom. We argue that a sort of reconciliation is occurring between the contrasting discourses and practices of 'hard' and 'green' engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hardcore, or long-term derelict and vacant brownfield sites which are often contaminated, form a significant proportion of brownfield land in many cities, not only in the UK but also in other countries. The recent economic recession has placed the economic viability of such sites in jeopardy. This paper compares the approaches for bringing back hardcore brownfield sites into use in England and Japan by focusing on ten case studies in Manchester and Osaka, using an 'agency'-based frame- work. The findings are set in the context of (i) national brownfield and related policy agendas; (ii) recent trends in land and property markets in both England and Japan; and (iii) city-level comparisons of brownfields in Manchester and Osaka. The research, which was conducted during 2009-10, suggests that hardcore brownfield sites have been badly affected by the recent recession in both Manchester and Osaka. Despite this, not only is there evidence that hardcore sites have been successfully regenerated in both cities, but also that the critical success factors (CSFs) operating in bringing sites back into use share a large degree of commonality. These CSFs include the presence of strong potential markets, seeing the recession as an opportunity, long-term vision, strong branding, strong partnerships, integrated development, and getting infrastructure into place. Finally, the paper outlines the policy implications of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper originates from a ‘Generics Industry Forum’ that debated the development of the Japanese generic medicines retail market. Based on these discussions, the paper conducts a descriptive analysis of Japanese generic medicines policy and proposes recommendations for further developing the market by learning lessons from the European experience. The Japanese generic medicines market has benefited from measures that assure supply and quality of generic medicines, provide information about generic medicines, speed up registration of generic medicines on the reimbursement list, allow and reward generic substitution by pharmacists, increase patient co-payment, and reward physicians who adopt generic prescribing and/or who allow generic substitution. However, several factors hamper the development of this market, including extensions to the data exclusivity period and patent term of originator medicines, the requirement to launch the same generic medicine strengths as the originator medicine, mandatory reductions of reimbursement tariffs and weak incentives for physicians, pharmacists and patients to demand generic medicines. In order to sustain the development of the Japanese generic medicines market, a number of avenues were proposed that focused on speeding up market access of generic medicines, implementing a reference-pricing system and strengthening incentives for physicians, pharmacists and patients to demand generic medicines.Journal of Generic Medicines (2009) 6, 129–135. doi:10.1057/jgm.2009.4 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the premise that mundanity is not so much a quality inherent in an object or event as an appearance or affordance generated at the intersection of object, subject, and location. Assuming that a single object will appear banal in one context and different in another, we focus our attention on cases in which a single object is encountered as both banal and different-visible and invisible at the same time, marked out by its ability to blend in. In this paper we explore the mundane and distinctive by reference to marketing and products of the Japan-based company Muji, and in particular through relating the two contrasting aspects of the Muji image to the different ways in which the objects are located in presentation-marketing contexts and in wear-use contexts. In order to explore the usefulness of this distinction between display space and use space we perform a tactical erasure of the commonsense distinction between the textual and the material, thereby enabling the collapsing together, into the single category of display space, of the textual spaces of Muji catalogues and the material spaces of Muji shop floors. The distinction between the en-masse presentation of new objects in highly controlled display spaces and the mundane wear and use of purchased objects in the various and variously encountered spaces of everyday life is explored through the hybrid display-use space of Muji show homes known as Muji-Infill. We conclude by proposing that this display-use distinction can be used strategically to articulate the way in which skilled consumers are able to encounter objects imaginatively and practically in two different contexts simultaneously. In other words, we speculate that, when skilled consumers encounter a superficially mundane Muji object in the literal and disorganised context of use space, they are able to recognise it as stylish and desirable in part by referring to an acquired understanding of the ways in which that object-in-use evokes a Muji marketing space of massed objects-on-display. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how and why the Japanese model has undergone changes in the context of its internationalization, during which foreign countries, particularly the U.S. and Germany, adopted Japanese methods, departing from their own traditional models at the turn of the twentieth century. By examining the dynamic processes of these transformations in national models, this paper critically reviews prevalent paradigms of neoliberalism and institutionalism, proposing an alternative of "mutual learning by reflexive agents." By exploring the dynamic processes of the Japanese model's internationalization and transformation, in which the Japanese model fell into crisis and underwent transformation in the changed context of international competition caused by the internationalization of the Japanese model, this paper proposes a new conception of "mutual learning by reflexive agents" in the context of international competition, in which agents, inspired by foreign competitors, critically reconsider their own institutions and, in turn, generate a new divergence in the process of creative learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the economic mobility of foreign migrants in Japan. In a country that is largely regarded as homogeneous and closed to outsiders, how and to what extent do immigrants achieve economic success? A survey conducted by the authors revealed that the conventional assimilationist perspective does not fully explain immigrants' economic success in Japan. Migrants from the West experience what Chiswick and Miller () refer to as 'negative assimilation.' That is, their earnings decline over time in Japan. While negative assimilation was not clearly observed among immigrants from neighboring Asian countries, wages among them did not increase with the length of their stay in Japan. For both groups, the skills they brought from abroad were found to be largely accountable for their economic success, while locally specific human capital, such as education acquired in the host society, did not contribute to their earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of people affected by dementia increases rapidly, dementia has been transformed into an epidemic which endangers global health and wealth, and many populations are now living in what Jain terms a time of prognosis, in fear of the disease. Through its strong association with ageing and memory loss, dementia is conceived of as a linear decline into loss of self and death, and those with dementia as other. More significantly, imagined as a threat that signifies both a loss of able-bodied workforce and a large population dependent on care and support, dementia inevitably feeds into the 'crisis-of-care' narrative that is prominent in many ageing societies. With one of the fastest ageing populations in the world, and an extremely low birth rate, the dementia prognosis is particularly acute in Japan and dementia is strongly linked to the idea of a 'care crisis'. This situation has produced an increasing number of cultural representations of dementia and care and this paper considers three of these cultural texts, all rooted in the historical and cultural contexts in which they were produced: the novel The Twilight Years; the film Memories of Tomorrow; and the comic book Pecoross' Mother and Her Days. The analysis concentrates upon their representations of care, seeing this as a space where the ethical relationship between self and other can be negotiated and where time with dementia can be imagined and re-imagined. The analysis of these texts from a feminist ethics perspective demonstrates the potential of popular and creative representations to interrogate and potentially expand the meanings of dementia, ageing and living in prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces new models for comparing several social mobility tables that provide various one-degree-of-freedom tests for two mobility tables on substantively meaningful structural components. These components include differences between mobility tables in (1) the strength of off-diagonal associations, (2) the strength of diagonal effects, and (3) the extent of structural mobility. Most of the models in this paper use association models and the Sobel-Hout-Duncan model but are specifically formulated to analyze three-way tables that have either nations or periods as the third dimension. American, British, and Japanese mobility tables are compared. Together, they show that equality of occupational opportunity is larger for the United States than for Great Britain, that Japan's mobility structure is closer to quasi-independence than that of the two other nations, and that Japan's mobility structure became more like that of the United States in 1975 rather than in 1955. These analyses also demonstrate that comparative mobility research based on indexing mobility has strong limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the analysis of racism in Japan can be advanced by taking note of theoretical arguments produced in the context of studies of European racisms. Specifically, the paper discusses the relationship between racism and nationalism, and argues that this relationship can be understood only if the ideological character of the notion of 'race' is recognised. The significance of racist ideology in the discourses of the state during the period of the Japanese colonial empire is analysed and some implications of this analysis for the situation of minority populations in contemporary Japan are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the conflict between tradition and the movement towards modernization in sport organizations. Specifically the paper focuses on the issues surrounding the structural reformations of the All Japan Judo Federation(AJJF). In conjunction with the widespread development of international competition modern-day sports organizations are under increasing social pressures to produce higher standards of performance. As a result, the need for modernization arises and conflicts with the traditional values of the organization. This study attempts to cast some light on the internal dissention of the AJJF during the period 1983-89. The paper demonstrates that the crisis was in essence a conflict between some members of the AJJF trying to maintain the traditions of the iemoto system with members of The Ali Japan Student Judo Federation sought to modernize the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we present an iteration of our theoretical/creative writing project Hashima, begun in 2012. The paper is a collaboration and draws on the different discourses, practices and sensibilities of a performance theorist, a geographer, and a visual artist. For us, Hashima, located off the coast of Nagasaki, Japan, and a former site of forced labor and intensive offshore coal-mining, is a provocation for experimentation. Hashima, exploited and abject, has offered itself, unsurprisingly, to the fetishistic gaze of artists, photographers urban explorers, and ruin enthusiasts. The logic here is to control representation, and to determine and fix the meaning of the island as always in reference to something else and elsewhere. Paradoxically, there is no sense of temporality or transformation in these representations of ruins; time has been stopped in an image. By contrast, we want to draw out the allegorical value of Hashima not as a site of loss, but as a baroque, blasted landscape of monstrous becomings that resists, and forefronts, this tendency to collapse history into nature. In the following, we introduce the island before turning to an exegesis of Walter Benjamin's writing on German baroque tragedy in order to demonstrate how representation itself becomes tainted through a material encounter with the baroque's two primary topoi, the ruin and the labyrinth. To do this, we finish with a creative narrative and two images illustrating our methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World War II yielded many photographs of bombed-out cities. In this paper we telescope between two sets and scales of images that represent the principal frames through which the American and Japanese publics have memorialized the incendiary bombings that laid waste to urban Japan: aerial photographs taken by the US Army Air Forces during its wartime planning, prosecution, and assessment of the raids; and the ground-level images captured by Ishikawa Kōyō, a photographer working on behalf of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. By means of a detailed examination of the production, circulation, and consumption of these photographs—what some scholars have called an “archaeological approach” to images of ruination—we explore not only the visual rhetoric and reality of the destruction of Japan’s cities, but also how that destruction is situated in history, memory, and visual culture. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on two ethnographic research projects in Japanese university sports clubs to examine the role alcohol plays in the social and cultural education of students. Over the course of a four-year membership, the university sports club is a site where members learn to negotiate drinking. This negotiation is demonstrated by the range of strategies members employ when engaging in one of the many official drinking parties that punctuate the university sports club calendar. Knowing how to drink is seen as an important byproduct of being a member and this knowledge is acquired via the pedagogical relationships established between junior and senior members. On graduating university Japanese students are literally expected to become full members of society and it is the habitus related to social interaction (including drinking) rather than that related to sport, which has enduring capital. Alcohol plays a central role in many aspects of Japanese social interaction and the university sports club is a site par excellence for the training in and mastery of such skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking a remedy for the radiation fear in Japan, the author re-examined an article on radiation hormesis. It describes the background for this fear and evidence in the first UNSCEAR report of a reduction in leukemia of the Hiroshima survivors in the low dose zone. The data are plotted and dose-response models are drawn. While UNSCEAR suggested the extra leukemia incidence is proportional to radiation dose, the data are consistent with a hormetic J-shape and a threshold at about 100 rem (1 Sv). UNSCEAR data on lifespan reduction of mammals exposed continuously to gamma rays indicate a 2 gray/year threshold. This contradicts the conceptual basis for radiation protection and risk determination established in 1956-58. In this paper, beneficial effects and thresholds for harmful effects are discussed, and the biological mechanism is explained. The key point: the rate of DNA damage (double-strand breaks) caused by background radiation is 1000 times less than the endogenous (spontaneous) rate. It is the effect of radiation on an organism's very powerful adaptive protection systems that determines the dose-response characteristic. Low radiation up-regulates the protection systems, while high radiation impairs these systems. The remedy for radiation fear is to expose and discard the politicized science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the decision of the Nibutani Dam Case that stated the Ainu, who have inhabited Hokkaido and its neighbouring islands since time immemorial, were entitled to have the right of enjoyment of culture as indigenous people, the Biratori Dam Project is underway in the heart of Ainu culture in Hokkaido. The legal system which includes the Environmental Impact Assessment and the Amended River Act allows the authorities to give priority to river development. In 1997 the Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act, which represented the Japanese assimilation policy, was replaced by the New Ainu Law. However, Japan's current Ainu policy has yet to take firm steps toward the protection of Ainu indigenous rights. This paper looks at the legal system surrounding the Saru River Development Project in light of the conservation of both Ainu culture and the environment. Further, the current Ainu policy is discussed in its domestic and international contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cultural dimensions of production networks between Japanese and Taiwanese firms. Conceptually, we argue that, due to historical and cultural ties between the two countries, as well as long-standing associations with Taiwanese suppliers, Japanese lead firms have deepened their relationships as Taiwan has entered a more technologically based stage of develop-ment. Taiwan has also been pivotal in Japan - Taiwan - China relations because of its cultural as well as geographic proximity to the two economic giants. Empirically, the analysis draws on interviews with sixteen Japanese electronics companies in Taipei and Hsinchu Science City, as well as secondary data concerning Japanese trade and investment in Taiwan. We contend that Japanese lead firms have moved to a position of insiders and partners with their Taiwanese suppliers in the information, technology, and communications sector. In addition, Japanese electronics firms now see Taiwan as a viable bridge to production and markets in China, while corporate relations are moving towards heterarchical or matrix arrangements, away from the hierarchical flying geese model. The study notes that there are challenges and limits to these new forms of relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors discuss the use of Parse’s humanbecoming theory in Japan. Elements of the theory are used in the nursing approach to an 88 year-old Japanese man who had complications following surgery. Process recordings of the dialogues between the patient, the patient’s wife, and the nurse were made and considered in light of the three methodologies of Parse’s theory; illuminating meaning, synchronizing rhythms, and mobilizing transcendence. The theory is seen as useful in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The history of social research can be read as a critical endeavour inasmuch as it unbuttons the normalcy of collective action by multiplying relevant actors and the imaginaries of social reality. I show how paying close sociological attention to what I call cosmopolitical events, offers one approach to such a conception of critical social science. In the paper, I explore the effects of the Japanese events at the Fukushima nuclear plant to unfold its significance as consequences that disrupt, question and alter common and taken for granted modes of ordering social life. Specifically, through approaching Fukushima as a cosmopolitical event we gain insight into the complex processes of normalizing social relations. Moreover, the Fukushima event and its effects demand to extend the history of the sociological imagination to the social and political relevance of the non-human. What emerges is a practice that enriches the process of unfolding research agendas and conceptual space to include those that have been excluded, marginalized, forgotten, unconsidered, or disfigured in the process of normalizing social and political action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]